Social media is being used by several brands for digital marketing purposes. In a recent survey, it was found out that around ninety five percent of firms plan to increase their social media marketing spends or maintain the same level. Thus with so much competition, the only way a single brand can reach out is through innovations. Innovation in marketing brings three different benefits. One is product or service differentiation. Another is the novelty factor where something is unique or unheard of in the market. Plus there is also the concept of leadership which initiators to any campaign or programme are bestowed upon with. Some key qualities are needed to create innovative social media marketing campaigns. One such is a unique voice by which the content disbursed is appealing to the market, reflects the brand’s personality and differentiates from competitors. It must also trigger pleasant surprise and cognitive processes associated with memory. It should also defy usual frameworks. The format may differ in terms of length of posts or the formality of phrasing. Often in spite of the best of efforts, business innovation does not get triggered. At such stages, the leader must just pull oneself away and let the team come up with innovative solutions. References may also be taken from other platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Instagram, all of which provide different contexts. At times, its okay to break away from norms or guidelines established. Very importantly, the marketers must focus on the emotional connect. Another common mistake is designing social media marketing campaigns by a committee of experts. It has been observed that such campaigns work better when a single person has been designated with the task.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/06/19/what-makes-a-social-media-campaign-innovative/#2f91696b2a23

Uploaded Date:27/06/2017

Social media is well known to be amongst the best modes for executing digital marketing. It works best when combined with emails. Such a combination serves three purposes which can popularly be termed as the three Cs of social media marketing. The first C stands for Content. The content to be disbursed on social media must be welcoming to new prospects and be familiar with existing customer base. More interesting content helps hook possible new leads and convert them further. Postcard mailers are a particular way of driving traffic towards company handles on social media. The second C stands for Connecting. Social media platforms such as Facebook which has more than a billion users, are so popular because they enable connections to be forged among people. Thus marketers must extract real time business intelligence from social networks. The desired information would be on click-through rates, topics that most interested readers and demographics on readers. The final C stands for Conversions. While viewership is important, ultimately any campaign is measured by the conversions generated. Social media provides an ideal market place such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Pinterest. Investments must be made in stimulating social comment, shareable images, video snippets and engaging content. Social media is also highly scalable. The impact can be further heightened by aligning with print media campaign.

Source:http://www.business2community.com/social-media/3-cs-social-media-marketing-01864077#gbPdWzouw4cbBJi6.97

Uploaded Date:19/06/2017

A lot has been made about the decline of email as a medium of digital marketing. Yet, research suggests that it is still the best at customer acquisition. One of the reasons for that is the substantial amount of captive time the medium provides. There are however some steps needed to make it more effective. Segmentation for example is key as a Campaign Monitor research shows a whopping seven hundred and sixty percent rise in revenue generation post segmenting. Also, emails must not be used only to target sales but also to drive engagement so the brand appears to be keen on information dissemination. This can happen through tutorials, blogs or news feeds. Marketers must be warned that engagement without conversion is of little value, so pats in the back must be avoided until revenue starts getting generated. Emails also enable automation. The timing of the mail delivery needs to be given due consideration. Emails sent at 6 am or between 7 and 10 pm tend to get better response. Even real time replies may be automated. Since majority of professionals these days tend to check emails on their smartphones, mobile optimization is necessary. Emails are adjustable in that sense as they can open on all platforms as opposed to graphics or visuals which do not work on some.

Source:http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/email-marketing-still-one-best-customer-acquisition-channels-2017-01854548#DkQHmhWOud7SEt03.97

Uploaded Date:27/06/2017

While majority of companies have accepted social media as a key link in digital marketing, some skeptics still remain. For them, some more reasons have been identified after which any further resistance to adopt a strategy will be impossible. First, of all social media reaches more people than any other source and seventy percent of adults are using these platforms. The return on investment is far more due to substantially lower entry costs. Social media leads to greater online visibility. Regular updates and ad campaigns can improve page search rank on both Google and Facebook. The overall customer experience improves as evidenced by two-thirds of customers choosing to stop interacting with brands that didn’t have social media presence. People expect response to any issue posted on Twitter to be within an hour. Before any brand interaction, customers tend to search out for its presence on social media. They often also check profiles of key people associated. Social media is nowadays also being used to watch television, research purchases, procure reliable product reviews and shop.

Source:http://www.business2community.com/social-media/6-reasons-cant-ignore-social-media-marketing-01850612#Z1hQWsoscUhuWtw8.97

Uploaded Dare:19/06/2017

A recent convention on social media marketing held in San Diego highlighted the various ways in which social media can help companies in creating monetary value. The first of them is that social media must be used for customer service and support purposes. The company must analyze what are the social media platforms majority of customers are using, so that greater presence can be felt on those. Investment must be such that business intelligence can be procured on every mention the brand receives online. Each such comment or mention must be quickly responded to. Digital marketing here must not imply robotic or predictable answers, but a genuine attempt at acknowledging mentions wherever possible. It must include different forms of social media to engage with the community. YouTube would be one such media to communicate with audiences.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/04/22/social-customer-care-is-the-new-marketing/#23357c0196c6

Uploaded Date:02/06/2017

Emails have time and again proven to be amongst the most effective methods of digital marketing. They can boost sales, engagement and loyalty if done in the correct manner. Research conducted by Forrester clearly testifies that there is a ten percent rise in sales for companies that have adopted email automation tools. Automation allows not only the right content but also its dissemination at the right time to the appropriate audience. Some marketers even use the concept of content buckets where similar content is disseminated in different forms such as blogs, white papers, videos or special offers. Widgets are used to track the opening rates and quantify relevance per customer or segment. The content distributed must also take into account the life cycle stage of the customer and his/her positioning on the sales funnel. A newly converted lead must not be sent the same material which a long time loyal one will receive. Thus events can also be layered accordingly. A very important process of any agile CRM solution is to know who the loyal customers are or in the case of an airline- frequent flyers. These techniques will also enable the appropriate cross-selling and up-selling of products. Service contracts, add-on features and in house training ought to be facilitated for new conversions.

Source:http://customerthink.com/how-to-boost-your-loyalty-sales-and-engagement-with-automated-emails/

Uploaded Date: 22nd May 2017

Managing digital transformation is the key to success in the e-commerce field. A different mindset is needed instead of the conventional retail ideas. But commonly some steps have been found that are symptoms of mismanagement affecting such firms. The first such symptom is a lack of customer engagement. A lot of these companies also suffer from periodic changes to the sales process. Business innovation involves experiment where without doubt occasional failures will arise. These failures must be treated as part of the learning curve. Yet some companies do not use them as proper tests to learn. IT is one aspect which needs to adapt fast with change, especially LEAN and agile methods. This doesn’t happen at mismanaged organizations and they also suffer from poor returns on investment.

Source:https://econsultancy.com/blog/69001-digital-leadership-why-change-management-is-key-to-ecommerce-success/

Uploaded Date: 22nd May 2017